Reminder: This Is Not The First Major Scandal For Mitch McConnell Aide Robin Cleveland

The Village Voice reproduced a note from former Mitch McConnell aide Robin Cleveland in which she approved the job transfer for Paul Wolfowitz’s girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza. Perhaps just as interesting, was that the Village Voice reminded us that the only reason McConnell and Wolfowitz were able to place Cleveland at the $250,000 per year job that she was deemed unqualified for by the Ethics Commitee, and where McConnell and Wolfowitz used her to steer funds to Iraq while circumventing World Bank lending procedures, is that she was recently a central figure in the OMB office Boeing scandal:

Here’s something eerie about Cleveland: She was only available in the spring of 2005 to join the World Bank and start writing personnel memos for Wolfie because her role in the Boeing/Air Force tanker scandal had just doomed her tenure at the OMB. She was a key figure in that Boeing scandal, which ousted a Secretary of the Air Force. Forgotten this particular sorry episode? Here’s a hint from a February 2005 Washington Post story:

Former Air Force secretary James G. Roche violated two military ethics rules when he urged a defense contractor to hire the brother of a senior Office of Management and Budget official while the Air Force was trying to win OMB endorsement of a new $30 billion aircraft leasing program, according to the Defense Department’s top auditor.

Who was the senior OMB official? Robin Cleveland. Who outed her smarmy e-mail exchanges with Roche? Not only the estimable Defense watchdog POGO but also John McCain, starting in 2003.

Cross-posted at DitchMitchKY.com